Bamboo Fuel Study: Low-Carbon Liquid Fuel Could Compete With Diesel at $2.75 a Gallon

Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute published a study in Sustainable Energy & Fuels showing bamboo can be converted into a liquid fuel through hydrothermal liquefaction. The process produces a biocrude that, once scaled up, could cost around $2.75 per gasoline-gallon equivalent. The study also reports that bamboo fuel generates 26 times fewer greenhouse gas emissions than conventional diesel and leaves very little ash waste. The key advantage is land use. The researchers say bamboo could match current U.S. corn ethanol output using only about 13% of the land, and it can grow on land not used for food production. That makes it an interesting option for aviation, heavy-duty transport, and other sectors where electrification is difficult. The main caveat is scale: the cost and emissions numbers depend on moving from lab results to commercial production with real harvest and processing logistics.